The importance of hip-hop
“Hip-hop has done so much for racial relations, and I don’t think it’s given the proper credit. It has changed America immensely. I’m going to make a very bold statement: Hip-hop has done more than any leader, politician, or anyone to improve race relations.” Jay Z
I read this quote on Jason Hirschorns Media Redef daily emails that I get. I love this quote because I too believe that Hip-hop has been a public mentor to kids across America. The top musicians in the Hip-hop music scene are smart business people. They have taken their god gifted talents and leveraged them by providing all of us with music to listen to but most of them have done so much more.
Jay Z is the ultimate example. He started hocking CD’s of his music out of the back of his car as a teen. He went on to build a record label with friends and then moved on a one point to do it again by himself. He eventually invested in a sports team, became an agent for athletes, opened up night clubs and much much more. He is growing an empire.
Two of my favorite quotes of Jay Z are “You learn more in failure than you do in success.” Spot on. I see it every day with entrepreneurs. Yet my all time favorite is “I’m not a businessman, I’m a business, man.” He rose from the projects of Brooklyn and is now a global business leader For kids coming from the same walk of life as him they can look up to Jay Z because you can’t be what you can’t see and what they see is a powerful business man who grew his empire starting with his own talents and love of music. That is empowering. The long tail of this is huge. His impact and reach is larger than we will ever know.
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Yes! This is one of my main reasons why I started the nonprofit Building Beats (www.buildingbeats.org)
^^ Phi! Dude wanna see Joanne speak tonight at Startup Grind NYC? I got you covered if you can make it http://www.meetup.com/Start….
Checking that out today. Thanks.
He started hocking CD’s of his music out of the back of his car as a teen.This part is key. Starting out at that level. Today kids do different (and better) things. But in a way they also loose a valuable lesson in dealing with people face to face which would help them greatly later on. (No lawn mowing, washing cars, shoveling snow which all require solicitation, pricing, negotiation etc.).I remember back when I was growing up a friend who took advantage of the trash strike in our city by renting a truck and going door to door collecting trash. Have no clue where he dumped it. Hard to imagine a middle class kid doing that today. Or more importantly even needing pocket money to find the motivation to do something like that. He could drive trucks because at the time his father was a food wholesaler and he learned to drive those trucks and make deliveries.
I hear you, but there is still more of that than one might expect – at least from where I sit. We live in an affluent area ( on the other side of the city from you, I think ) and I still see that kind of thing go on. Probably not as much as I used to though.The “face to face” thing is interesting. I gave a challenge to a dozen high school students recently and I discourage them from doing the “door to door” thing ( like I did back in my day ) because of safety concerns.The circumstances of many of the early hip-hop artists provided motivation ( desperation? ) to do whatever it takes. That’s hard to instill in young people who have more of a head start in life. I’ve actually been thinking a lot about this lately.
The “face to face” thing is interesting. I gave a challenge to a dozen high school students recently and I discourage them from doing the “door to door” thing ( like I did back in my day ) because of safety concerns.Back when I went door to door to find people living in rich neighborhoods that I could do car waxing for [1] what I did was take my girlfriend at the time with me. Reason? I knew that it would make it more likely for people to open up the door and be agreeable than if just a man came knocking. It worked since many times the wife comes to the door or even the kids. This was long enough ago that I remember one guy let us in and showed us his new VCR which he had just purchased. I also remember him saying “people drive through this development just to see who lives here…and they wonder ‘why is he here and I’m not’. And people did do that back then. Another satisfied customer turned me on to all of his card playing buddies by saying I should do the work when he was having his card game. (Learned about word of mouth). Another lesson I learned was how I could charge the same for a small sports car (Porsche) that took 1/2 the time as a big Lincoln Continental. In other words if someone will pay $x dollars they will not necessarily pay 2x for twice as much work. And many many more lessons to numerous to mention.That’s hard to instill in young people who have more of a head start in life. I somewhat but don’t entirely agree with that. I grew up in a home where all of my needs were met but the way my Dad treated things I knew I had to work to get what I wanted. So the problem lies in the parents and how they deal with kids and money. With my stepkids (my kids are grown and grew up with their mother) I do all sorts of things to try to teach them the link between working and money or more importantly working and not having to rely on someone else to buy or get what you want. Perhaps the poor kids are in that place because their parents don’t have any means to spoil them. So the problem is spoiling the kids, not that you have to grow up poor.[1] Very successful approach. Go to the target rich environment of nouveau riche homes vs. middle class.
Amen to this Bold statement! Totally true, even in deepest darkest Africa hip-hop provides a path.
The only reason I started listening to hip-hop! I grew up in an area where hip-hop became very popular, but it was just slightly after my time. The artists exhibit qualities I respect – hard work, hustle, resilience, independence, and courage.